1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to the field of heat sinks and more particularly to adjustable heat sinks which support multiple platforms and system configurations.
2. Description of the Related Art
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Due to physical form factor limitations, and overall chassis power and cooling limitations, dense information handling system platforms such as blade server platforms, often cannot simultaneously support maximum capacity, maximum performance, and maximum features. Reasonable configuration limitations (that minimize the restrictions) of simultaneously populated processors such as central processing units (CPUs), dual inline memory modules (DIMMs), Drives, input output (IO) Adapters, etc. address the needs of the majority of customers. However, optimizing the supportable configurations often requires design and or cost tradeoffs, or increased solution complexity.
One such tradeoff is the physical volume and air-path width of the heat sinks such as CPU heat sinks vs. a number of populated DIMMs located in proximity to the CPU. Another design consideration relates to supportable CPU thermal design power (TDP). Due to height constraints (which are often approximately 1 unit (1 U) of height), often with known blade servers the width of the CPU heat sink is increased to accommodate higher power CPUs. For example, CPUs with TDP<=80 W may be cooled with a relatively small heat sink, CPUs with TDP between 95-120 W with a larger/wider heat sink, and CPUs with TDPs>=130 W may require an even larger/wider heat sink to maintain maximum CPU performance (e.g., without thermal throttling).
While growing the CPU heat sink width allows higher power CPUs to be cooled, the increased heat sink width often occupies the physical volume requirements of non-CPU components, typically DIMM slots. Due to signal integrity requirements, it is desirable that DIMMs such as DDR3/DDR4 DIMMs be populated very close to the CPU and memory controller such as an integrated memory controller (iMC), and DIMMs be routed serially with a short lead-in to the first DIMM (typically <4-5″) and minimal DIMM to DIMM spacing within a double data rate (DDR) channel (typically 0.330″ to 0.400″). It is also desirable that channels be routed without interleaving of DIMMs from other channels, which increases DIMM to DIMM spacing reflections and degrades maximum achievable DDR frequency.